USC Researchers Win Two ‘Big Idea’ Awards

By Gabrielle Olya and Carl Marziali on September 24, 2009 7:59 AM

The first group of winners of a prestigious award from the National Institutes of Health includes two USC scientists working independently to mine the proteome - the universe of proteins and protein-like molecules - for important new compounds.

Julio Camarero, associate professor of pharmacology and pharmaceutical sciences, and Richard Roberts, professor of chemistry and chemical engineering, each will receive five-year, $1.25 million research grants from the new NIH Transformative Research program.

Roberts shares his award with co-investigator Hyongsok (Tom) Soh, professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

According to the NIH, the grants are “intended to support research that has the potential to transform the way we think about and conduct science” and are given to an “elite few with truly bold ideas.” Only 42 scientists nationwide received the award.

Camarero’s research aims to discover a viable antibody substitute. Antibodies are used for diagnostic purposes as biomarkers, and, to a lesser extent, as pharmaceuticals. The problem with antibodies is that they are large, hard to create and unstable.

Camarero plans to use a naturally occurring peptide - the name for a class of small, protein-like compounds - as the basis for a stable antibody substitute.

He is also developing a new technology that mimics the immune system and can rapidly locate peptides related to particular diseases such as breast and prostate cancers. What differentiates his technology from other approaches is that selection is made in vivo rather than in vitro. The process occurs within the cell itself, and this allows potential candidates to be screened efficiently.

This technology in effect allows him to accelerate molecular evolution. “We’re creating a library of a thousand million compounds and out of that library, we may get 50 to 100 candidates to take to the next step,” he explained.

Camarero’s research eventually could be translated to help detect cancers, toxins and other specific targets, and in the long run, it could be used toward developing new, more biologically based therapeutic drugs. The drug pipeline is currently empty in the category, so his research holds great promise for the future of therapeutics.

Roberts wants to do for protein and peptide design what automated genetic sequencing did for the human genome project: push a pharmaceutical sector with annual sales in the billions past the bottleneck of slow and labor-intensive manufacturing.

“We currently exist in a world similar to automobile construction prior to the assembly line - protein and peptide reagents/therapies are handcrafted for their specific task,” he explained.

“We believe it should be possible to rapidly create binding reagents [peptides and antibody-like proteins that bind to the target proteins] that overcome the barriers that currently face antibodies, dramatically reducing the time and increasing the scope [the range of, and number of targets] of protein binding reagents available.

“Our aim is to develop a robust technology that can be used to quickly create comprehensive reagent sets on a proteome-wide scale.”

If Roberts and Soh succeed, their work could revolutionize a wide range of practices in basic research and drug design.

Roberts came to USC in 2005 from Caltech, where he spent eight years on the faculty. Previously, he was an Alfred P. Sloan and NIH postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School.

Camarero joined USC in 2007 as an associate professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Sciences as part of the Provost’s Biomedical Nanoscience Initiative. Previously, he held a fellowship at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

More information on the Transformative R01 Award is at http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/T-R01. For descriptions of the 2009 recipients’ research plans, visit http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/T-R01/Recipients09.asp

TAGS: innovation, research

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